A while back, I wrote here that Washington is getting richer while the rest of America is mostly getting poorer. I made the comparison, as did some others I quoted, to the fictional world of the Hunger Games, where the Capital City flourishes while the provinces starve.

In response, I got an email from Samantha Scown, legal intern to former Washington, DC mayor (and now councilman) Marion Barry. She wrote:

"I really think you should reconsider your article about how Washington, DC was not affected by the recession and is doing so much better than the rest of the country. . . . I am not sure if you have ever been to the DC area, but I live here and there is a lot of poverty. The capital area might be doing great and the 2 wards where congresspeople live might be doing well, but the rest of the city is affected by poverty. Wards 7 and 8 have an average income of less than $30,000 and there are boarded up stores all over the city, just not in the 2 mile radius that tourists and outsiders see. . . . Maybe your next article could be about how DC has the largest income margin in the nation? About how the congresspeople and lobbyists make over $100,000 a year and the rest of city is living in poverty?"

Well, she's right that in Washington, D.C. -- a town that has more people per square mile talking about income inequality than probably any other -- you also find really striking examples of, well, income inequality. (And I lived there for years).

But maybe that shouldn't be such a surprise. A recent report from Reuters concluded: "The federal government has emerged as one of the most potent factors driving income inequality in the United States - especially in the nation's capital." In fact, the problem in Washington is just a smaller-scale example of the problem facing America: The more powerful the government becomes, the better off those who wield that power become and the worse off everyone else is left.

Part of the inequality comes from high-paid federal employees. Reuters notes: "Today there are 320,000 federal jobs in the Washington area. Within the District of Columbia, 55% pay $100,000 or more. " But even more of the inequality comes from the large numbers of even more highly-paid lobbyists that today's big government has attracted: "Nearly 13,000 lobbyists registered with the government last year and reported $3.3 billion in fees, or about $260,000 per lobbyist. That's 22% more lobbyists and 37% more inflation-adjusted revenue per lobbyist than in 1998," reports Reuters.

But highly-paid bureaucrats and higher-paid lobbyists don't generate much in the way of jobs for working people, which is why the number of sub-100K jobs in Washington has actually declined. If these bureaucrats and lobbyists worked for companies that made things, there'd be more employment. But -- except for waitstaff at pricey lunch places -- lobbying and being lobbied doesn't generate a lot of jobs. So it's a division between rich trough-feeders and poor everyone-else, a situation often seen in Third World capitals.

At the local level, of course, D.C.'s woes are compounded by an inept government that is often marked by naked racial attacks on Asian shopkeepers, and by efforts to actually kill businesses that compete with favored interests. Not many jobs are created that way either.

The political classes would like you to believe that putting more money into government makes things more equal. They'd like you to believe that because, in fact, putting more money into government puts more money into their pockets.

The truth is, government doesn't create wealth, it consumes it. And it doesn't create equality, either. It undermines it. Don't be fooled.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is professor of law at the University of Tennessee. He blogs atInstaPundit.com.

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